Appboy Helps Devs Re-engage Lapsed Users

What's the biggest customer-related problem for mobile app developers? A good guess is that it has something to do with one-time downloads by users who lose interest almost immediately.

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Enter
Appboy, which just launched a customer segmentation platform aimed at building engagement.

"The future of mobile is monthly active users," Appboy cofounder and CEO Mark Ghermezian told CRM Buyer. "We've built a platform for mobile developers that helps them regularly engage with their customers."

For many developers, the easy step is getting people to download an app, he said. "We are trying to fill in the gap of what happens after."

Identify, Segment

Appboy's core functionality is identifying and then segmenting customers.

"We build rich user profiles by pulling in demographic information, using analytics, etc. -- and when the user comes in, we track everything he or she does," Ghermezian said.

There is a wide range of factors used to build the profiles, from data gathered from the app sessions themselves to social profile data, to in-app behaviors.

Appboy users can also avail themselves of a series of tools: push notifications; in-app messaging to targeted emails; content recommendations; and general customer support.

"So if a mobile developer wants to send a marketing offer to users that have used an app, say, 50 times in the last three months, it is easy for him to gather that information and send the message however he wants," Ghermezian said.

Full Support

The platform comes with a full support desk from which customers can view the feedback that is coming in from users and reply on a one-to-one basis, Ghermezian said.

Responding quickly to complaints or issues and then integrating that feedback into the customer process or design process is integral to building out customer engagement, he added.

How It's Used

Appboy opened its doors about a year ago. Since then, it has been developing its segmentation platform and software applications, which it launched at the start of the year, Ghermezian said.

Customers are using the product for a variety of purposes, such as targeting lapsed users who have not opened an app lately, and focusing on users who have large social media followings. Other uses have included analyzing and identifying behaviors that lead to the best opportunity for upsells and rewarding fans with offers and discounts.

"It's a very flexible platform," he said, "so people are finding a lot of ways to use it."

Erika Morphy has been writing about technology, finance and business issues for more than 20 years. She lives in Silver Spring, Md.